DEPRESSION PROBLEM

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XXIII, Issue 300, 2 December 1933, Page 10

DEPRESSION PROBLEM

TASK TOR EDUCATIONISTS. I'SE FOR LEISURE HOURS. A brief hint was given by the New South Wales Minister of Education to Vhe newly-appointed Commission on q echnical Education to extend the M'.ope'of its inquiry into a new social roalm. The increase in unemployment due to the depression has forced upou many people more leisure than they know what to do with. Some have drifted into crime, or at least into bad company, and have kept the police busy. Again, scores of others have been forced to take up work that is not congenial. They have became discontented, and a discontenteo citizen is -usually a bad citizen. Ail the Minister said, when he addressed the members of the commission, was: “It may be found on inquiry that there is a greater need to train the community tor leisure than was the case beloro the mechanical age was upon us.’” How much or how little of the depression ftas been the result of “the machine age” has not yet been settled, and may never be settled, although it will always be a popular topic with politicians and economists. The commissinu has not been asked to aolve the question of unemployment, but it has been asked to suggest a remedy for some of the effects of unemployment on the social morality of the people. SEARCH FOR SOUND POLICY. Many young people are now being trained in the technical schools for positions that do not exist. Such a poliev cannot be regarded as a sound one, and it seems as though the commission will have to evolve a scheme which would put them to better use. Educationists have long realised the gocial problem occasioned by increased leisure, and the commission represents the first serious attempt in Australia to deal with it. ' The commission will consider tho wisdom of placing technical education in various hobbies at the disposal of the new “leisured” class. It is hoped that if the men who have no jobs, or jobs that are un.onp nial, can be soundly instructed r.n li hobbies as wireless, metal work, and cabinet worx, the new interest in their lives will convert them into useful citizens and good pvcial assets. Thirty years ago the

technical schools in New South Wales were overrun with hobbyists. Since (he training for a hobby is incompatible with the training required by a skilled tradesman, it followed that the tradesmen were being excluded from the schools that were originally intend: ad for them. There was no unemployment problem then, and in an attempt to reform the technical schools the hobbyists were driven out, except for a few branches. EDUCATION WITHOUT BENEFIT. Many educational authorities in Sydney say they are satisfied that a large proportion of the huge sum spent on juvenile education is wasted. Excellent as ths system is, it assumes that every boy and girl is capable of being educated up to a given standard. Actual teaching experience has shown that tens of thousands of boys and girls who have expensive technical and general education flung at them, as. it were, have been incapable of getting any practical or cultural benefits from that education. The commission may suggest that some of the money wasted on children who attend technical schools could be applied to giving adults knowledge they would appreciate. It does not mean that they will be offered free technical education. They are bound to appreciate more, that which they pay for, and some ideas along those lines might be ‘he outcome of the inquiry.